Live wires are NOT appealing

We've been living with live wires in our family room for awhile. This is because the previous owners had speakers on the wall and then chose to take them with. Fine by me. But that left us with live wires. See?

So this weekend many weekends ago because we've been busy, we finally got around to hanging up flush mount speakers. We don't have a sound system but we'll have speakers for when that happens at least!

We bought the speakers at Menard's for $30. First, Mike traced the template around the existing wires and holes.

Then he used a drywall knife to cut through. This is when we realized a small problem. The previous owners had put a small 2"x4" between the wall studs. We assume they were planning on hanging speakers on it (except they never did; they ended up making huge holes in the wall with drywall hooks - sweet job, Old Home Owners).

To solve this problem, Mike had to use a drill to make a row of holes in the wood. Then he used his saw to cut out the wood. With this process, Mike took out the excess insulation as well.

After getting the wood and insulation out, and the rest of the whole cut out, Mike was able to slip the speaker frame into the wall.

After this, Mike connected the wires hanging from the wall to the speaker wires. I wasn't here to witness this, but hopefully it was all in the directions!

With the speaker in place, install the cover and frame. The night before, I painted both to match the wall paint. So now it looks like this!

We love the result - I'm so excited! No more live wires!